The Spirit of 45: Movie Review

The Spirit of 45: Movie Review

Director: Ken Loach

The post war spirit of Britain (aka the Stiff Upper Lip) is oft spoken of, and here evoked in director Ken Loach's latest.

Blending archive footage with modern day interviews (which are curiously in black and white), Loach pulls together a potted history of the UK in the days post the end of World War II and with an eye to never returning back to the doldrums of the years before.

Shots of bed bugs, of tidying up after the bombs have dropped and talking heads paint a picture of a world struggling to get back on its feet - but despite the film being painted as a polemic documentary, it's more a film of softer edges with a subtle political message running throughout. Loach proffers up his political colours, but chooses to let the speakers paint the picture rather than lecture around it.

Sure, you can see his political stance a mile away (trade unions are praised rather than looked at for their divisiveness) and there's something quite simplistic over the portrait which has been created overall.

However, The Spirit of 45 encapsulates and provides a portrait of the times more than anything else - it's down to the footage that Loach selects to use which gives an insight into a time we may have never seen rather than lived through.

Rating: